#this writing should’ve won an emmy

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Week

Wherein we cover an entire season of Space Ghost Coast to Coast over the course of a week

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #57: “Joshua”

| January 1, 1998 | S04E25

Ending the season with a goddamned bang is “Joshua”, an especially hilarious “conceptual” episode that has a dizzying amount of funny stuff in it. The majority of this episode is masquerading as a “for internal use only” sales video meant for advertisers and other potential business partners to convince them to license the Space Ghost brand for commercial use. I’ve decided I’m not even going to try and highlight my favorite bits, because it’s just a series of hilarious stuff. 

“Joshua”, named for a marketing exec at the Cartoon Network, was written similarly as “Pavement” was. The group of writers wrote either two pages or for twenty minutes into a laptop and passed it off to somebody else when they were done. They should’ve written the whole series like that. 

There’s a few notable things about this episode. One of those things is that it includes clips from bogus “upcoming” episodes, and it’s simply an excuse to burn off interviews that were otherwise not gonna get used. In the commentary track they mourn the loss of Tony Bennett and John Flansburgh’s interviews, saying that they were actually quite good. John Flansburgh’s screen time amounts to about 3 seconds, and I don’t think you get to even hear him speak.

It sounds like a few scripts died so this episode might live. The DVD commentary mentions a full script written for Tom Arnold’s interview, and that Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer wrote a full-show script for the contest winners who are jammed in at the end of the episode. That’s another notable thing: When the marketing video is over, we cut to the actual Space Ghost opening, as if we’re just now getting to watch an extremely short episode of the actual show. The guests are two youngsters who won a haiku contest, the prize being that they get to be guests on Space Ghost. They were lead to believe that they would have an entire episode dedicated to them, but wound up splitting a two-minute segment. Evan and Sarah are special thanked in the credits, probably along with other writers who wrote scripts for the mostly-unused interviews featured here.

One of the contest winners wrote about getting to hang out with the Space Ghost staff before shooting his interview. He was legitimately insulted that they used so little of his interview in the actual show.

One last thing, and it’s a DVD NOTE: This episode on DVD is missing a small segment featuring guest “William: The King of Imagination”, who apparently was just some dude they met at a convention or something like that. I remember when they were prepping this DVD they actually put a call out during the Adult Swim bumpers requesting his whereabouts, because they needed him to sign off his likeness rights for home video. I guess they couldn’t track him down. He is in the HBOMax version, though. Also: HBOMax (and IMDB?) consider this episode to be part of season 5? I’m assuming because it aired in the calendar year of 1998, on January 1st? Yeah, whatever.

And that is it for Space Ghost Week! Stay tuned TONIGHT for the debut of LIVE ACTION on Adult Swim: We cover the first episode of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job.

EPHEMERA CORNER

Space Ghost Coast to Coast: This is 1997 (April 12, 2005)

Also known as Volume Three. I’m covering it here because I forgot to cover this DVD release when I was doing 2005. Let this loose thread finally be tightened.

I’ve basically covered all the great stuff about this DVD in detail over the course of various write-ups. A handful of commentaries, some deleted scenes and a raw interview with Bob & David, and fun Easter Eggs (an awards presentation video for a local Emmy awards animated with Space Ghost and Co, and a weird little clip package of the Space Ghost crew visiting what seems like Cape Canaveral for some promotional thing, perhaps having to do with the Planetarium Tour.

There’s also a version of the World-Premiere Toon-in that’s a bit of a director’s cut version of the show that actually has a little bit of extra footage and excises all the clips of other cartoons. It’s not what a purist would call a “complete” version of the episode, but it’s maybe the most watchable version. Somebody ought to cut together a composite cut of all of them. Somebody other than me. You know?

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #space ghost coast to coast

[kristenbouchard]

lifetime unreal 👀

genuinely where to begin what to cover ... i mean. formative media. single personality defining show for me if ever there was one. i have never spent so many hours inhabiting the world of a tv show as i have with unreal, i KNOW quinn and rachel in my bones and i live in the everlasting mansion. there’s no way for me to look at unreal objectively like i know that critically speaking past season one it’s really not the best show but it absolutely slaps the whole way through and i think everyone should watch it and talk to me about it!! it was such a treat because they simply do not put dynamics between women like that on television all that often. think dwp mirandy but elevated to the level of i can’t even look directly at this. the level of care constance and shiri put into their characters comes through so beautifully and they’re both ridiculously talented. ummmm what else what else. every time constance lightly mentions a quinn king spin-off i lose my MIND but i highly doubt it would ever come to fruition. i know i say this every couple months and never do it but i will one day write my expansive kingsgold pre-series dwp inspired fic i promise. i have to cut myself off here because if i actually start thinking about anything substantive i won’t shut up. OH constance should’ve won the emmy for quinn king

#send me ☕️ and a topic and I’ll tell you my opinion on it!

[lilyhandmaiden]

The Things That Have Gotten Me Through 2020

In the last few minutes of 2020, I thought I would share some of the little things that have brought me joy and comfort and, when both of those were in short supply, have dragged me forward through this year.

12 Monkeys (TV series)

I started watching the 2015-2018 SyFy series 12 Monkeys, which revolves around time travel being invented to stop a humanity-ending pandemic, in February or so, right before it became clear that the current pandemic was going to have a big impact on all our lives. It was... weird timing. Nevertheless, in the early days of lockdown, etc., all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and escape by watching this ragtag group of idiots save the world and, eventually, Time Itself. They were, overall, very bad at it, always getting in their own way, but they won anyway, and that felt strangely encouraging. The show is not unproblematic at times, but its overall message is that, while endings are inevitable, the relationships we form and the choices we make matter. That was something I needed to hear and take to heart. Plus, the series introduced me to Jennifer Goines, one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. As played by Emily Hampshire (Stevie from Schitt’s Creek in a role as unlike Stevie as it is possible to be, at least in terms of self-expression), Jennifer is “brave, impulsive, irrationally rational,” and a force of radical love and compassion for her friends and, ultimately, for herself—even if her brain never works the way she wants it to. May we all try to live in the happily ever now.

 Schitt’s Creek winning all the Emmys

Schitt’s Creek was my big discovery of last year, and its amazing character development in a story about finding oneself and forming connections in the process of starting all over was hugely important to me upon entering into post-academic life. This year, I’ve loved seeing this show’s snowballing popularity, which culminated in its sweep of the Emmy comedy category. Watching the ceremony at home with my cat, I screamed as those wins piled on (not as loudly as Sarah Levy up in Canada, but still). Legends Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy with their first acting Emmys! Dan Levy for writing and directing and acting on his first series doing any of those in a major capacity! Annie Murphy, for her hilarious and heartbreaking and inspiring and masterful portrayal of Alexis Rose, after she was told she couldn’t do comedy without comedy lessons and almost quit acting! The COSTUMES. No cast and crew have ever been more deserving. Love that journey for them! And the fan celebrations afterward were such an expression of communal joy at a time when joy and community were not so easy to come by.

 Folklore and Evermore and Taylor Swift

           It took me about a month to get around to listening to Taylor Swift’s first surprise pandemic album, folklore. Once I did, though, I couldn’t seem to stop. There were stretches of weeks when I only listened to folklore. It was for working and driving and writing and cleaning and thinking. It’s sonically soothing and lyrically gorgeous, pulling from literature, history, memory, isolation. I’ve never listened to an album where I can pick out so many favorite individual lines before. I’ve always admired Swift most for her storytelling, so it’s no huge surprise that I love this album, where she embraces the storyteller role. Still, I’d only really paid attention 1989 and her singles before—and not really even to her singles over the past few years. After about a month of only listening to folklore, all the time, like it had me hypnotized, I decided it might be worth listening through the entire Taylor Swift discography.

           I fell in love with folklore as an album for its bittersweet, nostalgic feel that spoke so perfectly to this moment in time, but the exact moment I fell for Taylor Swift as an artist might have been when my jaw dropped at the cutting specificity of, “Don’t you think nineteen’s too young to be played by your dark, twisted game?” in “Dear John.” And then when I cackled as she wrapped up the song with, “The girl in the dress wrote you a song. You should’ve known.” That was when I started to appreciate Taylor Swift for the way she has, from a very young age, understood her power as a storyteller, and specifically as the teller of her own story. “I was there. I remember it,” she emphasizes over and over in song after song, seizing the authority she might otherwise be denied as a young woman (“when you are young, they assume you know nothing”). Plus, her use of imagery is unparalleled. folklore spoke to this moment in time, but there is a Taylor Swift song for every possible moment and mood, and that became a comfort and escape of its own.

           So, by the time evermore came out, I was able to appreciate it as an event. And that, in these times, is no small thing. evermore is the wilder and sadder of the twin albums, and its songs revolve around endings and, on the other side, improbable hope. Here’s to this pain not being for evermore. Take a nap, Taylor. You’ve earned it.

 Writing

At the end of grad school, I felt like I might never write creatively again. I was afraid that creative part of me had withered up and died. But last year, slowly, it started to come back, and this year it’s been one of my main sources of joy. I’ve written thousands of words, and I’m actually enjoying the process of doing it and proud of the outcome. I know and understand why a lot of people have struggled to be creative this year, but for me, writing my way into another world where I am actually in control of what happens has been my favorite way of escaping this one. It’s all I want to do all day while I’m sitting at work, doing official correspondence. I’m even writing original fiction for the first time in ages, and you know what? It’s not nearly as scary or difficult as I was afraid it would be. Plus, I love talking about writing, sharing enthusiasm and working through problems, with friends. I’m not a fast writer, but I hope to do more of it, and find a way to do it more consistently, in 2021.

 Texting with friends

I haven’t been perfect at it, but I made the decision at the beginning of 2020, before All This even really got started, to do a better job at keeping in touch with my friends. In a year when we’ve had to reconfigure so many things we care about, I can wholeheartedly recommend a weekly text with friends as a way of keeping those relationships and those people prominent in your life. Throughout the year, reaching out on a regular basis to the people I love—when I need them, when they need me, just to say hi—has deepened relationships I care about and has been a constant source of comfort, stability, and fun. So much emotional and physical good has come out of it for me and, I hope, for others as well. This is a part of the year I’m really proud of, and I intend to continue, expand, and refine this program in 2021.

 Learning to cook things

At the beginning of the year, I set the modest goal of learning to cook one simple thing each month of the year. When so many other goals and aspirations got blown up, this is one I was able to keep to for the most part. The holidays got in the way at the very end, but I did learn to cook 10 new things this year. For a person who could cook almost nothing before, this is big progress. It worked so well that this is another program I intend to carry on into 2021.

 My nephew

Last year, I was looking forward to the day when this kid would be able to recognize me. Last weekend, he came running to be picked up with a big smile when I came through the door and hugged me when I left. It’s possible that he thinks Aunt Erin With a Mask and Aunt Erin Without a Mask (the latter of whom appears only rarely) are two different people, but he loves both of us, and we love him. I can’t wait to see what he’s learned by this time next year. I hope the world is a friendlier place for him by then.

Happy New Year!

#darth real life #12 monkeys #taylor swift #schitt's creek #2020

[thedemogorgon11]

i love ‘schitt’s creek’ and i’m happy that they won a bunch of emmys, but i do wish ‘the good place’ had won one or two. i kinda think they should’ve gotten the one for writing, tbh. the show that taught us about morals and being a good person hasn’t won an emmy, and i’m sad 😭 i know that it’s great it was even nominated in the first place, but i’m still a lil sad

#schitt's creek #schitts creek #tgp #the good place #the emmys #emmys #emmys 2020 #the emmys 2020 #the emmy awards

[365days365movies]

February 19, 2021: The Phantom of the Opera (Review)

44%. And that is generous as SHIT.

Oh, I’ll break it down, but I just wanted to get that out of the way now. FUCK this movie, it’s goddamn terrible. I swear, Joel Schumacher is not my filmmaker, holy SHIT. Genuinely severely disliked this movie. Girlfriend was harsher (as she often is with movies), and gave it a 40%. Here she is after seeing it.

Ravishing. Anyway, yeah, this movie was genuinely kind of terrible. And that’s actually nothing against the musical itself. Just like Tom Hooper’s Cats, which I say in theaters, I’m sure the stage musical is legitimately better than...this. And I’ll explain my issues in the Review down below. Recap of this train wreck can be found here and here.

Review

Cast and Acting: 2/10

WHY GERARD BUTLER? SOMEBODY TELL ME WHY. He’s bad. He’s BAAAAAAAAAAD. And I’m obviously late to the game on this one, but GODDAMN. HE. IS. NOT. GOOD. Here’s a less-popular take, I think: I don’t like Emmy Rossum either. She’s OK, but she doesn’t quite have the singing chops needed for this role. I’m not convinced that the theatre owners would pass up Carlotta’s singing voice for hers, honestly. Speaking of Carlotta, Minnie Driver‘s extremely over-the-top performance may be the only thing I actually enjoyed about the movie in terms of performance. Can’t say that for Patrick Wilson, whose bad accent and singing didn’t endear me to his performance even a little. Everybody else ranged from mediocre to downright abysmal. And I’m not one to badmouth people, but they should NOT have been cast in this movie. Oh, and the chemistry, between two couples in this movie? BOUGHT NONE OF IT. GODDAMN, THAT SCORE IS GENEROUS, THIS WAS BAAAAAAAD.

Plot and Writing: 4/10

Look, the plot’s OK, but the writing and the way dialogue is handled isn’t. The GF made a point about movie musicals risking being a bastardization of a stage musical, because of the inherent differences between cinema and the stage. And this movie should’ve been a film before it was a musical, that’s for sure. So, who wrote the screenplay? Well, Andrew Lloyd Webber, for one. And while it’s not a bad thing to have the originator of the musical be a major part of the screenwriting process...he’s also not a filmmaker. So his work definitely should’ve been balanced out by his co-writer...Joel Schumacher. We’ll get to Schumacher, but he’s only written one movie that critics like, Car Wash. And while I think there are various reasons for that success, he’s not exactly great at writing musicals...or movies...or directing those movies. What I’m saying is, they REALLY needed another pair of eyes here.

Directing and Cinematography: 5/10

OK, let’s get this out of the way: I don’t like Joel Schumacher. I just don’t. Haven’t seen a film of his that I’ve liked, but I’ve only seen four of them to be fair. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin are guilty pleasures, and you could argue that they’re a take on the Silver Age Batman stories, sure...but they’re still bad movies, I don’t think you can argue that shit. And The Wiz is...OK. It’s OK, but I also don’t think that you can argue that it’s a good movie, or a good adaptation of a stage musical. 

And this movie isn’t much different in terms of direction. But even then, it’s not...terrible. There are some good shots in there, and some competent camera work throughout. Same goes for the shot construction and cinematography. So, why the hell is it so low? Because, well...it’s still pretty goddamn bad. Especially the LIGHTING OH GOD. The lighting in some scenes is just...genuinely terrible. Who did the cinematography, anyway? John Mathieson, who also did...Gladiator. Huh. He won awards for that one. And then...X-Men: First Class, Kingdom of Heaven, Pan, Robin Hood, Detective Pikachu...the next Doctor Strange movie. Wow. Mixed record, there, but some solid cinematography. So, that means that the problem here was mostly the directing, with a splash of cinematography problems as well. Damn, Schumacher, what the hell?

Production and Art Design: 7/10

Actually, this was pretty good, real talk. Yeah, the costume and set designs were solid throughout. This movie looked great! Just didn’t use any of that bombast well. Was it perfect, though? I present to you Gerard Butler’s GODDAMN FACE. Yeah, arguably one of the most important parts of the story, and his face constantly changed from shot to shot. Genuinely bad makeup there. How about Patrick Wilson’s terrible wig? There are problems, is what I’m saying.

Music and Editing: 4/10

Some of you are probably freaking out at that score. Let me explain, though. The music itself is, of course, fantastic, and I’m only talking off one point from it because of the singers and how some of the music is actually used in the film. Could’ve been used better in a few places, is all I’m saying. Ahh, but that’s only one point; what happened to the other 5? Ahem.

FUCK THE EDITING OH MY GOD!!!!! If I can express hatred towards ONE THING more than ANYTHING ELSE in this movie, it’s the GODDAMN EDITING! It is terrible. IT. IS. TERRIBLE. And all I have to say is, WHAT THE FUCK TERRY RAWLINGS? You’re actually a decent editor, and we’ve been you here before, with GoldenEye! That editing was fine, what happened here? I don’t know exactly what happened, but this was his last film. Not because he died, because he passed away in 2019. But dude edited FUCKING BLADE RUNNER!!! This movie’s editing was SO BAD, that it DRIVE THE DUDE INTO RETIREMENT!!! MY GOD.

So, yeah, it’s a 44%.

Look, I really don’t like this movie. It’s a bad movie, and not in a “so-bad-it’s-good” way. It’s just bad. It’s just...BAD. And I was gonna watch another musical after this, but...no, I need a break. What else is on my list? I need something good, something acclaimed, something...romantic, for God’s sakes. And maybe...something familiar?

February 20, 2021: An Affair to Remember (1957)

#the phantom of the opera #phantom of the opera #phantom of the opera 2004 #the phantom of the opera 2004 #poto #poto 2004 #joel schumacher #andrew lloyd webber #gerard butler #erik #emmy rossum #Christine Daaé #patrick wilson #miranda richardson #simon callow #Ciarán Hinds #romance february #romance film #musical film #movie musical #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #tusersophie #melaniecavills

[queen-of-songs]

Emmys -Hopes

1. I hope Bodyguard wins Best Drama - Richard Madden killed it (still mad he didn’t get nominated for Best Actor) Keeley Hawes is really great too! Pose or This Is Us are good options too!!!!

2. I hope Jodie Comer wins Drama Actress even though I’ve never seen Killing Eve, I’ve loved her on other projects. I’d also like to see Sandra Oh or Mandy Moore win.

3. I hope Billy Porter or Milo Ventimiglia wins Drama Actor. Look, I would’ve been happy to see Kit be nominated for season 4-5 (he had really good emotionally depth those seasons!) to see him win for season 6 (favorite Jon season). Season 7 is mind boggling to me Jon wise and season 8 is just sad.

4. I hope Sophie Turner wins Drama Supporting Actress- LOVED her in season 8. She was really amazing, Queen in the North. I wouldn’t be disappointed if Maisie won, she was really great this season. With Lena- I don’t think it was the strongest season for her character due to severely subpar writing but Lena killed it as always. She should’ve won for season 6.

5. I WANT ALFIE to win Drama Supporting Actor!!!!!!! Please!!!! Nikolaj wouldn’t be a bad alternative. But please Alfie, he’s so good!!!!

6. I hope Drama Writing goes to Bodyguard or anyone else but GoT 8x06. I would’ve nominated one of the first two episodes.

7. I’m assuming The Long Night Will win Drama Directing. Eh- I liked Battle of the Bastards and Hardhome more, oh well.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #actuallyjonsa #sansa x jon #actually jonsa #jonsa fandom #emmy thoughts

[makerkenzie]

Emmys? Fine.

Emmy results are in, and it seems GOT’s haul was...Peter wins yet again, and GOT gets Best Drama.

And since we’re all full of spite following S8, of course we also note which awards they didn’t win. No Emmy for writing! No Emmy for directing!

If the Emmys could have honored just ONE actor from GOT this year, honestly it should’ve been Alfie Allen. It’s tough to choose because GOT’s always had an embarrassment of talent, but seriously, Alfie has fucking earned that statue 6 times over and he never got it. 

Whereas, Peter winning a fourth time? Is not the least bit surprising, and because it’s not surprising, it’s not offensive. While Alfie deserved it more, and Nik also really should’ve gotten a statue by now, Peter worked for it. I’m not gonna be mad about Peter getting another Emmy. 

With GOT having a full two-thirds of the noms for Supporting Actress...I am honestly kind of shocked that none of them got the award. I wanted Gwen to win, of course. That would’ve been awesome. But that she didn’t win, and none of her co-stars won in that category, either? That’s wild. 

I am relieved that Dingus & Dickhead didn’t win for writing. That they were even nominated is an offense to creativity. They didn’t win for directing, either. Their directing was hundreds of times better than their writing, which is hardly an achievement, but if they had to win anything this year, I’m glad it was for Best Drama. The Best Drama award, for one thing, honors the team effort, so fuck this “but it’s THEIR ART” nonsense. For another, if the industry reads this as recognition of D&D’s work as team captains...I’m okay with that narrative. Especially if the implication is that the award is for GOT as a total body of work, not just for S8 in particular. They’ll probably see it as validation of their storytelling choices, which is obnoxious, but if more of the producers and executives recognize the distinction between their work as showrunners and their work as creatives, that’s a good thing. 

MORE OF THE SPITEFULNESS:

The best-case scenario for acting would’ve been Nik and Gwen both winning. That was a long shot at best. I would’ve been okay with Gwen winning but not Nik. Whereas, if Nik had won but not Gwen, certain people would’ve taken that as validation of Jaime’s redemption arc going to waste, and that would’ve been obnoxious. 

If Lena had won over Gwen, certain people would’ve taken that as validation of the Twincest myth and the show’s general over-investment in Cersei’s POV, and that would’ve been obnoxious. 

And for anyone saying Gwen’s self-submission spoiled her co-stars’ chances at the awards, especially Lena? I mean...I’ve never watched Ozark, but just maybe, Julia Garner actually deserved that statue? This is not a dig on Lena. If anything ruined Lena’s chances at the award, it was the S8 script. Lena’s an outstanding actress and the final season didn’t give her enough material for an Emmy-worthy performance. Cersei just didn’t have much going on in S8. And anyway, maybe D&D shouldn’t have gotten greedy and submitted THREE actresses all for the same category. Sophie and Maisie both had better material in S8 and so they gave better performances. Gwen also had better material and performed accordingly. If any of them were robbed, it wasn’t Lena.

IMO, if they really wanted an Emmy in the Supporting Actress category, and if they really wanted that Emmy to reflect the best art, they should have submitted Gwen, and they could have submitted Sophie OR Maisie but not both. You know what? No. Just submit Gwen. Sophie and Maisie worked for it, but their roles were fucking weird. Both Sansa’s and Arya’s arcs were all over the map in S8. Brienne was the only one whose decisions didn’t go all WTF for the sake of spectacle. They should’ve submitted Gwen for the Emmy. Because they submitted a full goddamn three actresses for Supporting Actress, and those three did not include Gwen, they deserved to lose the Emmy for that category.

I would’ve been okay with Emilia winning for Best Actress, as she worked for it. Although at the same time, that would’ve been taken as validation of Dany’s arc, and that would’ve been obnoxious. Dany’s arc was poorly handled, at best. 

Kit for Best Actor...meh. Jon’s arc made a lot more sense than Dany’s, but it still didn’t give Kit much space to perform. Not surprised he didn’t win.

Because Dany’s arc was cringeworthy and Jon’s arc was weak-sauce, I am relieved that neither of them won. If they’d both won, that would’ve been taken as validation of some really bullshit writing.

Carice...she worked for the Emmy, but then Melisandre’s role in ep3 was not entirely coherent. Not surprised she didn’t win.

Now where can I get a knock-off of Gwen’s outfit? That biz is fucking epic and it looks super-comfortable. I wants it. 

#game of thrones season 8 #emmys19

[classicajays]

A few things about SNL and the Emmys coming up in September.  No Alec Baldwin nomination, so I guess even the Emmys have moved on from his impression. But in his place (and a different category) we have Robert De Niro who played as Robert Mueller.  After a huge push last year to finally get Kenan a nomination, the Emmys seemed to have gone back to ignoring them, and that really annoys me a lot because I really want him to get a win before he leaves the show.  While Kate McKinnon is always deserving, I’m surprised that we got no Aidy or Leslie again this year, or even Cecily for the first time. I really feel like this could be the year John Mulaney will win for hosting.  He should’ve won it for his first time but for whatever reason, he wasn’t nominated last year. I hope that Creating SNL cleans up at the Emmys, those videos are some of the most interesting, best produced stuff based around how SNL is put together.

A bit off topic on SNL, but I’m surprised that yet again, outside of best writing, Late Night with Seth Meyers is shut out again. I mentioned this on twitter but I’m really happy that Catherine O’Hara is nominated.

#Saturday Night Live

[borisbubbles]

08. France

Haaaaah, it’s great to enjoy the off-season, so now that the Academic year has started, I’m able to fully FOCUS on my bachelor thesis/teacher training internships..

...

...wait? I still... have to write? Eight, you say? *gulp* k FINE!!! (but I won’t force myself to do footnotes unless I need to. Sorry if you enjoyed those eek.

Anyway,

08. FRANCE Madame Monsieur - “Mercy” 13th place

Let us dive in, in medias res, for “Mercy” is nothing less than a fantastic song. Even if “Mercy” weren’t an original, fun, captivating song with a clever, mature take on a hot, politically, sensitive topic and was instead about breaking glass teapots with overheated camomile tea or the joys of yodel therapy, it still would’ve ranked high!!! Well okay, perhaps not *eight*, but you get the gist of it. 

Fortunately for all of us, “Mercy” really was way more than just a pretty sounding-melody. During the preshow, I labelled it a “harrowing humanitarian hymn” and that assessment still stands. Now let me get out of the way that I don’t REALLY care all that much for the topic at hand. War, Peace, Death, Loss of a Family Member, Political and Humanitarian Themes, etc, all fall under the moniker of “Charity Songs” and I generally do NOT like those type of  messages!! “Are you kidding me? This isn’t, like, wellfare, it’s not our fault that you, like, suck at life.” -- Courtney Yates -- me. 

The reason for my dislike of the “Charity Song” runs two-fold. One, the intentions: Often such songs are written specifically for the contest, with the idea of drawing in sympathy votes. Sanitizing (or trivializing) the problems at hand, and not raising awareness are merely collateral damage. In other words, they’re a fucking SCAM. Most Charity Ballads in this group are deliberately vague and rhetorical (remember “What if?” my sympathies if you do.) Second, the way the message is brought is also important: Even if you are well-intentioned you can’t be condescending (”Wars for Nothing”), aggressive (”Wars for Nothing”) or obnoxious (”Wars for Nothing”) (or heaven forbid, all three.) This is why I don’t like “Non Mi Avete Fatto Niente”, as you may remember. MetaMoro had good intentions, but I could do without the incoherent yelling, no fanks. 

“Mercy” passes both of these checks with flying colours. “Mercy” is a really brave entry.  It doesn’t shun confronting the issue with lyrical imagery. It’s not *that* noticable because the song is performed in French and the message hollered down our ear canals alongside an obnoxious PowerPoint overlay, but... translated lyrics such as “I am all the children that were taken by the sea” conjure up the image of dead toddlers washing up on desolate beaches and that’s some seriously real stuff to be addressing in a camp circus such as Eurovision, man.

Providing SOME levity to all of that heavy thought porn is the act, which I found simple but effective. Standing together in the the midst of smoke wearing a trouser-skirt(?), transposing into THIS

which is easily my favourite moment in the entire finale? Brought by sweet Goblin princess Emilie and her half-Elven paramour Jean-Karl, “Mercy” is bathed in maternal warmth. It’s elegant, stylish and graceful. It’s a huge pity Europe wasn’t feeling it, because I don’t think Europe will come up with such a clever entry in the next few years. 

So why do I rank them 8th and not higher? Well,... for me nothing has changed since November last year, when I first heard the song. There hasn’t been any evolution in sentiment and other entries I either already liked more or have grown on me. There was no French journey, you know? It would’ve been different had “Mercy” won in what would’ve been an EPIC and 100% deserved victory, but alas, people just weren’t feeling it all suppose. 🙄 Praying that they develop better taste before they mindlessly hand Kristian Kostov the trophy in eight months from now. 🙄

RANKING SO FAR:

08. France (Madame Monsieur - “Mercy”)

09. Hungary (AWS - “Viszlát nyár”)

10. Finland (Saara Aalto - “Monsters”)

11. Bulgaria (EQUINOX - “Bones”)

12. Denmark (Rasmussen - “Higher ground”)

13. Malta (Christabelle - “Taboo”)

14. Cyprus (Eleni Foureira - “Fuego”)

15. United Kingdom (SuRie - “Storm”)

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak  - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente”)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We got love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES

1) I suppose I can’t spare some time to discuss the one thing I couldn’t fit in the write-up: “Eva” and how well it could’ve done. Well, I personally don’t really care? Like, I loved “Eva”, just like how I love “Mercy” (actually, I loved “Eva” as much as I love “Mercy”? 🤭🤭🤭) and neither would’ve won anyway, so who the fuck cares. I do think “Eva” would’ve finished where Cesár would have (3rd) and no, NOT because Lisandro and Csár are both black guys, but because Lisandro defo would’ve won the jury vote, but still not by a wide enough margin to beat Eleni, let alone Netta once the televotes are added to the mix. Having said all that, picking “Eva” would’ve just been more of the same GENERIC SAFE SHITE that’s polluting this Eurovision Era and no fanks. So while I don’t like “Mercy” THAT much more, it holds my pref as the French entry because it was different and out there. We will have plenty of “Evas” in the next few contests. Will we ever have another “Mercy”, thought? I doubt it. 

2) However, let’s face it they should’ve just picked Emmy Liana (IDGAF THAT EUROPE WOULD’VE SPAT HER OUT BECAUSE SHE’S NOT WHITE/CHICKEN/CONFORMIST ENOUGH, SHE’S FREAKING OSSUM!!!!!).

#Eurovision 2018 #Eurovision Song Contest #France #Madame Monsieur #Mercy

[evenstevensranked]

#5: Season 3, Episode 1 - “The Kiss”

Season 3 begins with a bang -- bringing us one of the best, most memorable episodes the show has ever produced! Louis and Tawny accidentally kiss at lunch and the two decide to start dating!!! AHHHH! Everything's great until Tawny has to kiss Zack Estrada (yes, the saga continues once again) in the school play. The subplot is all about Donnie, who feels like a broken human because he never cries.

This is it, guys. The Top 5. The home stretch. The crème de la crème. Let’s go. 

This episode was a really big moment in my childhood. I was going through some old VHS tapes I found not too long ago, and came across one with this episode on it! That’s how you know it was a major deal. The first minute or so was cut off on the recording, and this was before all of our TVs had in-depth guides at our fingertips -- so I had no idea what episode was going to be airing. All I knew was “Even Stevens is up next!” So as soon as I saw it was the kiss episode, I popped in that tape and recorded this thing ASAP. I was a tweenage hopeless romantic with a crush on Shia LaBeouf. Of course I had to record the episode where Louis gets a girlfriend. 

It opens with Louis and Tawny at lunch together being adorable, trading snacks and sides until each of their lunches are completely different from what they started with. When suddenly, Tawny ~gets something in her eye.~ The oldest cliché in the book! I love it. Louis gets reaaal close to Tawny and goes diggin’ for gold in her eye, eventually identifying the “thing” as a soy cookie crumb. That’s when some person bumps into Louis and thankfully Tawny’s lips are there to break his fall.

The two are in absolute stunned silence once they break apart. It was a magical moment, clearly, as you can see. Ren interrupts their mutual daze by walking over with Zack Estrada and Tom in tow, reminding Tawny that she has a fitting for the school play. This does a hard cut to Louis’ room after school that day. Twitty dramatically spits out his drink when he hears the news: “DUDE! THIS IS HUGE YOU KISSED TAWNY?!?!” 

I’ve mentioned before that Even Stevens comes across as more of a ~bro show~ in comparison to the majority of Disney Channel shows which typically follow a teen girl as the lead. This is why I love rare moments like this scene between Louis and Twitty. Two guy best friends freaking out about one of them kissing a girl for the first time. I feel like we never see this on Disney Channel anymore. It feels so real and genuine too, especially for these characters. Louis isn’t entirely sure if it counts as a kiss though, so Twitty demands to get the facts straight. (“Kissing is like basketball, either the ball went in the hoop or it didn’t!”) He asks Louis how long he kissed her for and Louis guesses it was a “one-Mississippi” length. Twitty rejoices. 

“SWISH, DUDE! You kissed her!”

Louis is elated. Both of them agree that Louis + Tawny = Beautiful. (Can’t argue there!) So much so, that Louis starts to skip around with happiness. One of my favorite parts of the whole episode is here, when Louis takes a moment to think about how Tawny might be feeling. He has a mental breakdown when he realizes “Wait, whoa. There she was... Eating her lunch... and I, like... JUMPED on her! For all I know, Tawny’s disgusted by me!” Louis Stevens is the kind of guy we all deserve. I know it’s such a small thing, but it’s something that has aged amazingly. This line stood out like a sore thumb to me given today’s political climate and the Me Too era. I’ve said a million times that this show has aged super gracefully because it really has. It’s not entirely perfect though. No show is without its blemishes. There are some things we haven’t made it to yet in the countdown that have definitely not aged very well, but we’ll get to that later. Let’s just say, this one little line shows that Louis has grown exponentially as not only a character, but a guy in general, and sets a good example. Twitty vows to go on a “fact-finding mission” for Louis to figure out how Tawny feels about the situation. 

Tawny is still back at school rehearsing for the play which was written by... you guessed it! REN STEVENS! This woman does everything. How does anyone else even have a job at LJH? Ren is in charge of everything ever. Ren’s brilliant and totally not boring play is about Abigail Adams, played by Tawny, and her relationship with John Adams, played by none other than Zack Estrada! Knowing these characters and their history, it’s clear that Zack is still into Tawny to some degree. Coach Tugnut is there because they apparently pay him $92 to be the theater advisor. I love how specific that amount is, lol. He has no problem telling Ren that her play is a pile of trash and needs to be spiced up if she wants to sell any tickets.

I love how Tom is playing the “lowly manservant.” He’s ridiculously dedicated to staying in character at all times throughout the episode. Tom’s the best. Tawny’s pattern mixing though. A plaid dress with red and black striped tights and Docs? She was so ~alternative.~ I love it. 

Zack is trying to ask Tawny out for a root beer when Twitty crashes the rehearsal and not so subtly tries to ask Tawny about the kiss, skirting around the issue by nervously asking stupid questions instead like “where are your parents from originally?” But of course, Tawny is freaking awesome and has no time for anyone's bs as usual. She literally says “I’m gonna stop you. Because eventually, you’re going to ask me about the kiss Louis gave me today at lunch. If he wants to talk to me about it, he can talk to me without your help. Tell him to meet me at his locker 10 minutes before first period,” YAAAASSSSSS! TAWNY IS NO NONSENSE AND ONE OF THE GREATEST FEMALE CHARACTERS ON DISNEY. Praise. 

The next morning Louis is waiting for Tawny at his locker and you’ve undoubtedly seen this screenshot of when he notices her walking his way: 

Smooth. For whatever reason this is one of the main images that comes up as a “Louis Stevens” search result, therefore nearly every single nostalgia article uses it. It’s kind of annoying. 

Louis and Tawny have a preciously awkward conversation, talking about how they both couldn’t sleep because they were up thinking about what happened. They’re also sort of skirting around the issue until Tawny puts her foot down once again: “Look, Louis, I like you. I always have. Since the first day I met you.” I am melting. Louis is so freaking happy and says “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?! WE COULD’A BEEN KISSIN’ UP A STORM!!!” Oh, wow. They immediately start dating and I’m a puddle of goo. Also, this happens. Which... yeah, lol. 95k notes. Wow. 

The first gif tho. Louis when Tawny was saying “I like you.” HOW GENUINE IS THAT FACE?! Shia won an Emmy for this so there is justice in the world. But yeah. They are so pure. :’)

This leads into a montage that spans possibly 3 days or so, showing us Louis and Tawny interacting as a couple. I hate that this is all we get. They should’ve stretched this montage into 3 episodes instead tbh. I live for this crap. 

“Hey, babe. Want some celery?” 

“Only 15 more hours ‘til I see you!” 

"Thanks for walking me to rehearsal.” “Oh, anything for my beautiful lady.” 

QUALITY CONTENT. Also, gotta love how polite Louis is being by wearing that hideous sweater Tawny knit for him. 

I love this episode because we get to see actual ~Boyfriend Louis~ for the first and pretty much only time, and man is it something. Once again this show nails the awkwardness of Junior High relationships. It’s so intense when you’re 14, right?! There’s no such thing as casually dating. You have to be all in, 24/7. It takes over your life because you’re not really equipped to mentally handle a serious relationship at 14. This is why I never get tired of watching TV teen relationships. They’re always endlessly entertaining to me. 

After watching a cheesy 1940s “Casablanca” knock-off romance movie with the fam, Ren realizes the “spice” her play needs is the passion of two people in love. She rewrites the play to make it more exciting and even adds in a passionate kiss between Abigail and John... a.k.a. Zack and Tawny... for the big finale. UH-OH! We’re introduced to Donnie’s little subplot there because Steve, Eileen, and even Beans -- bawled their eyes out at the movie but all Donnie could do was burp after stuffing his face through the whole thing. He starts to question “what’s wrong with me?!” because he felt no emotion whatsoever.  

Ren announces the script changes at the rehearsal Louis walked Tawny to a few screenshots above. Coach Tugnut observes Louis and Tawny’s obvious couple-y vibe and tells Louis “First girlfriend? Get ready for a lifetime of pain.” Oh, god. That’s the last thing you should tell Louis Stevens. He starts freaking out and it only gets worse when he hears Ren tell everyone about the addition of the big kiss and Zack cheers “YEEEEEAHHHH!!!!!! *transitions into a cough to cover his excitement*” Because as I mentioned, it’s clear that he’s still into Tawny. I feel like if it was anyone other than Zack, Louis might be okay with the kiss. There’s just something about this guy that he absolutely cannot deal with. We first saw Louis' jealousy over Zack and Tawny way back in Season 1 with "Easy Way" and then "Strictly Ballroom." We also see Louis become super jealous over Twitty's friendship with Zack towards the end of the series. Also... I swear, I did not plan for 3 out of 4 episodes in The Zack Estrada Saga to end up in the Top 10 and be counted down in serial order. Pretty cool that it worked out that way though, haha.

Louis feels that Ren’s rewrite is “too predictable” so he decides to write his own ending for the play and presents it to Ren at home that night. He envisions the story concluding with Abigail running to her husband and giving him a haircut. HAHAHA! Anything but a kiss! “I’ve never seen it before!” he says. Welp, he’s definitely right about his idea being unpredictable! lol. Imagine?! Of course, Ren can tell that Louis is actually just freaking out about Zack kissing Tawny and Louis is like “Are you trying to embarrass me in front of the whole school?!” -- But, would it really be that bad though? Would people taunt him like “lol ur girlfriend kissed another guy” or something? Because, like... It’s just a play. But then again, it is middle school. So. 

Louis is super down about the whole thing and Tawny finds him sulking on a bench the next day. She’s all “Hey, Cutie Pants! I’ve been looking all over for you!” -- ‘Cutie Pants’ is a little too far, lol. She brought Louis her “Tater Slabs,” which he declines. Side note: Are those supposed to be a form of Tater Tots? Because I feel like Disney Channel has a million different names for Tater Tots. They call them Tater Slabs here. These days, they’re calling them Baby Taters on Andi Mack. It’s just a constant reminder that “Tater Tots” is a registered trademark that Disney can’t say without coughing up the cash, lol.

Tawny asks Louis if something’s the matter and he’s like “I think you should quit the play” and pulls a bunch of bogus excuses out of his butt as for why. Tawny being Tawny cuts right to the chase: “Does this have anything to do with me kissing Zack?” I love this bit. She reassures him that all they’re doing is acting, it’s not real -- and there’s only one person she really wants to kiss. She asks Louis to promise he’ll be okay with it and Louis’ response of “Alright. I promise,” is the softest, most sincere thing I’ve ever heard this character say. It warms my heart every time. Tawny heads off to rehearsal and Louis is feeling prett-ay swaggy knowing he’s ~the only man in Tawny’s life~

I CAN’T DEAL WITH THIS. I also never knew what he was saying here, but I think I just realized he’s mouthing to himself “I’m the only one she really wants to kiss” 

Louis was just accepting the fact that it’s ONLY ACTING until he sees the newly unveiled poster for the play that features a cozy picture from dress rehearsal. 

CUT TO THE PLAY! It starts with a bit where Tawny/Abigail calls Tom’s character Renee “a loyal and faithful manservant.” Tom originally had a speech, but Ren cut it in her rewrite. So he milks his time on stage by saying “Thank you, thank you, thank you” repeatedly to Abigail. It’s great. Tawny and Zack are up there acting really well together! Louis’ whole family is whispering about how great their chemistry is and Louis is quaking. 

One of John’s lines in the play is that he will think of Abigail “on two occasions... when my eyes are open, and when they are closed,” -- Is that a Babyface reference?! HAHA. Louis can’t take it anymore so he goes running backstage and I’m not sure what he was planning to do, but he ends up going completely insane. He somehow managed to steal Tom’s costume right off his back and goes running on stage demanding for John to leave before kissing his wife goodbye. It’s so cringeworthy. I can’t help but laugh though when Louis says “You must come with me at once! You gotta send her a postcard, email, or something! We gotta miss rush-hour traffic!” LOL. 

Ren: “How did Louis get your clothes?!”

Tom: “He can be very persuasive...” 

What could Louis possibly have said to get Tom to strip?! Omg. 

Tom goes running on stage like ^ that in an attempt to save the play somehow and says “Excuse the undergarments, m’lady! I was under the cherry tree napping!” which was always one of my mom’s favorite lines, haha. Tom tries to drag Louis off stage but the entire play officially goes down in flames when Louis starts fighting Tom off of him. He goes rollin’ all over the stage, knocking down everything in his path -- completely ruining the set. It’s funny, but I also feel so bad for Tawny. Ugh. 

After Louis destroys the whole shebang, he tries to play it off by doing this... which is truly hilarious: 

Louis meets up with Tawny outside after the play and the two have such a dramatic conversation. I love it. Louis apologizes: “You gotta understand... I tried to be mature and cool. And the next thing I know, I’m up on stage wearing Tom’s pants! I’m really sorry.” It’s way more sincere than it sounds. Louis decides that he’s not ready for a relationship. This is actually such great character development for him. Interestingly, he’s mature enough to realize he’s NOT mature enough to seriously date someone. As upsetting and frustrating as it is to see the two break up, it’s also really satisfying to see him own up to his immaturity. This creates a true arc for when they finally get together in the series finale. It feels earned. Like they’re actually ready that time around. They decide to go back to being just friends for the time being. Before they part ways, however, Louis decides to leave Tawny with a super suave kiss?! What the heck?!

This was the biggest kiss of my entire childhood between two TV characters aside from Lizzie and Gordo at the end of The Lizzie McGuire Movie tbh. Everyone was expecting that Lizzie/Gordo kiss though. THIS one was outta left field here! This is so weird to me! He’s super smooth with Beans’ cousin later on and here he’s kissin’ Tawny like a pro. Idk, man. 

The episode ends with Donnie finally crying over that Babyface lyric: “When his eyes are open, and when his eyes are closed......... THAT’S ALL THE TIME!”

And that’s it! 

Gaaad, this episode is a classic. Like I said, it was a pretty big deal for 10 year old me, let me tell ya! I feel like it’s definitely one of the most memorable episodes ever. Not to mention, it technically has 3 plots (Louis/Tawny, Ren writing the play, and Donnie) and ALL OF THEM ARE INTERTWINED FLAWLESSLY! I gotta commend that. The only department I’d say this episode is lacking in is quotable dialogue. But that’s it really! It checks every box for me otherwise! This episode and the finale probably had a lot to do with Season 3 being my favorite as a kid, haha. 

What are your thoughts on this wonderful season opener?! Please add to the conversation via Disqus belowwww!

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#rank #even stevens #season 3 #shia labeouf #louis stevens #christy carlson romano #tawny dean #louis and tawny #louis x tawny #tom gribalski #alan twitty #the zack estrada saga #ren stevens #donnie stevens #beans #tv review #tv #tv shows #lizzie mcguire

[creativitytoexplore]

Announcing the 2020 Winners of the Insider Prize https://ift.tt/2DNkREu

For the last three years, American Short Fiction has sponsored a contest for incarcerated writers in Texas. A group of writers at the Connally Unit, in Kenedy, Texas, came up with the name: The Insider Prize. Each year we get dozens of essays and short stories from men and women in prisons and jails across the state, some handwritten and others produced on typewriters. They tell stories about their lives before prison, about the conditions inside, and about the many places their imaginations take them.

This year’s award is marked, like so much in our world these days, by tragedy.

Back in April, as we prepared to share the good news with the winners and finalists, we learned that finalist Timothy Bazrowx had died at a prison hospital after testing positive for COVID-19. He was 63. As the virus continues to rip through shockingly ill-prepared prisons and jails, the men and women inside remain especially vulnerable. Bazrowx knew this—he wrote to one correspondent that in prison, “sickness runs like a crazy horse through a flower bed.”

Through three books and countless shorter pieces, Bazrowx had cultivated an incisive, vivid, and frequently hilarious style, which he didn’t abandon even as his home became a deathtrap. As the virus spread in his prison, officers threatened to punish his peers for going shirtless in a common area. “The world is dying and these bastards want us to be fully dressed to see it happen,” he wrote. “Geewiz.”

It is with his unique spirit, of smiling while speaking truth to power, of finding joy in the face of horrors both natural and manmade, that we present this year’s winners, along with Bazrowx’s own submission.

The winners were selected by guest judge Justin Torres, whose award-winning 2011 novel We the Animalshas proven popular among writers behind bars.

In the fiction category, Torres selected “That Place on Daniel Island” by F.R. Martinez. Martinez also won in the fiction category last year, when Joyce Carol Oates selected his story “Mother’s Son.” This new piece is told entirely in dialogue, and Torres wrote that it “feels so alive, to not just the syntax and rhythms of everyday speech, but also to the very need for dialogue itself. Talking is a way to both dig up trouble, and put it to rest. The two characters are talking from two very different sides of a shared experiences—marriage, incarceration—and the effect is quite moving.”

In the memoir category, Torres selected “The Promise” by Steven Perez. “What I loved most about this piece,” Torres wrote, is “that the story moves beyond the narrative of the gruesome attack that serves as the inciting incident to raise important questions about witnessing, responsibility, codes of conduct, failed guardianship—all the systemic issues that foster and allow for prison violence. It is tremendously well written.”

The memoir runner-up this year was “My Time Paradox,” by Jacob Jills, which Torres called a “real achievement in prose style” that “provoked an eerie claustrophobic feeling while reading.” The fiction runner-up this year was “Classic Rock,” by John Rodgers, which Torres called “troubling, funny, and hazed with a kind of dreamlike nostalgia.”

We hope you enjoy this year’s winners.

—Maurice Chammah & Emily Chammah

  So I said to her ‘Let’s go to that place over on Daniel Island where we used to go.’ And she said ‘What place?’ I said ‘You know, that place that was kinda like a beach bar or something.’ ‘Beach bar? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You mean the bagel place? The one that had the everything bagels?’ ‘No, no. Well— is that still there? We used to go there.’ ‘They only open for breakfast and lunch. Not dinner.’ So I said ‘I mean that place that had the jukebox with that Billy Joel song we like.’ ‘Juke box?’ ‘And there was a bar in the front, even though it was always half empty. They had good burgers.’ ‘You don’t mean the hotel? The restaurant in the hotel where we went with Nick and his wife before they broke up?’ ‘Damn. That must be like twenty years ago. No. Is that still there? I don’t even remember how to get there.’

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‘Well, I’ll drive.’ ‘I sure would like to go to the other place though. I used to think of it when I was down for some reason.’ ‘Really. Were the burgers THAT good?’ ‘No. I mean they were good but—I don’t know I just liked the place because it was so laid back, so peaceful, so—Charleston. I mean, I know there was no beach there on Daniel Island, but when I remembered that place it felt like there shoulda been one nearby, like right down the road or something. It’s hard to explain, but when you’re locked up a place like that just seems like heaven, you know? To be away from everything. . . ’ ‘There’s that other place on Daniel Island over there by where we used to live.’ ‘That’s right. I forgot we lived on the island for a few months when they were building our house.’ ‘Over there in the mall, where the Ross was,’ she said. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s gone now. It’s been gone for like–I don’t know—ten years?’ ‘Ten years—’ ‘You were gone a long time.’ ‘Yeah. I barely recognized that part over there when we come into our neighborhood off the highway. That used to be a Piggly Wiggly over there.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What happened to the Blimpie’s?’ ‘That’s gone. Been gone.’ ‘I was down a long time, but I bet that place on Daniel Island is still there. Maybe with a different name and a different owner.’ ‘Maybe. But don’t have to go there. There’s lots of new places. There’s one by Folly Beach. I’ve gone there with Tina and Rosemary.’ ‘Rosemary?’ ‘Yeah. She used to work with me at Bosch, remember? She retired before I did.’ ‘I didn’t think you were friends with people from Bosch, I mean except for Dennis.’ ‘Dennis died two or three years ago. I don’t remember exactly when. You know how memory is. I didn’t go to the funeral. It was too sad.’ ‘I remember you told me he died. . . on the phone.’ ‘You’ve been gone a long time, baby.’ ‘I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I used to hear people in prison talk about their lives outside. I’m talking about people with fifteen and twenty year sentences. They had a long way to go, and they’d just started. I used to wanna say to them: listen, forget that life, man. It’s over. But I did it too, talked about my life, you know, with you and the kids here. But that was at first. After a couple of years, I stopped that. I didn’t talk to anybody. What for? People left. Or they got transferred to other prisons. Or they died. What was the use of trying to make friends, to get close to anybody.’ ‘You used to talk to me on the phone about your ‘friends.’’ ‘That was nothing. Just people I met. People to hang out and bullshit with, people to bitch about the conditions and whatever was going on. There’s no real friendship in there. The place is like a bus station, or an airport. Anyway, it’s illegal to contact other ‘felons.’’ ‘Is that what you are now? A felon?’ ‘No. I’m still me. I’m still the same guy you married.’ ‘No. You’ve changed.’ ‘You’ve changed, too. I mean, c’mon, thirteen years. I swear. I thought I was gonna die in there. I had one celli who was a psycho, another one was a drug addict, another one almost killed me with B.O. Another was a pest, always begging for attention, bugging me with his problems. And then you had that stroke. I thought you were gonna die. The kids wouldn’t answer their phones.’ ‘I know. That must’ve been terrible.’ ‘More terrible than you think. I thought I’d have nobody left when I got out, you know? And then I used to think you didn’t forgive me—for what I did.’ ‘I was angry. I still am. You fucked up our lives.’ ‘I think you need to put some of the blame for that on the wonderful government.’ ‘No. I put it on you. What you did was wrong.’ ‘Not thirteen years worth of wrong! For God’s sake! I didn’t kill anybody!’ ‘You should have known better.’ ‘How could I? It’s not like they tell people what kind of sentences they’re giving out.’ ‘You should’ve known. Somebody smart like you should’ve known. What you were doing. . . didn’t you ever think there were consequences?’ ‘Okay. Right. Whatever. I just felt like all of you just let me rot in there. That if I died no one would care. I mean sometimes it was months before I heard from any of you.’ ‘You think it was easy for us? Paying the bills, keeping things running, ignoring all the people that kept telling me I should divorce you, that you were no good. It was no picnic, all right?’ So I said to her ‘Okay. Well. . . can we go to that place on Daniel Island? It was nice there. I remember we used to drink Coronas under one of the umbrellas in the tables on the patio.’ She was quiet for a minute, and then she said ‘Oh! THAT place. The one with the patio furniture outside.’ ‘Yeah! That’s it!’ ‘It closed down. About six years ago.’

—

Cuban-born writer and composer F.R. Martinezimmigrated to the U.S. as a result of the Cuban Revolution. He grew up in Miami then moved to New York City to attend the Juilliard School where he studied with David Diamond and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. He went on to compose music for film, television, radio, and theater. He is the recipient of two Emmys (in conjunction with the writing team at Children’s Television Workshop, currently Sesame Workshop), and a Grammy for the Sesame Street album Elmopalooza in 1998, on which his song “Mambo I, I, I” is performed by Gloria Estefan. He worked with several other notables such as Cindy Lauper, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Trini Lopez, and various Latino music stars of the late twentieth century. In 1998, along with writer Luis Santeiro, he was the recipient of the Richard Rodgers Award offered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, for the musical Barrio Babies. He worked for Disney on the show “Handy Manny” as a composer, completing background music and songs for 100 shows. “Handy Manny” was also nominated for an Emmy in 2009. With the Charleston Symphony Orchestra he worked on various projects including one for Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish fame. He’s been creating poetry and fiction since the age of twelve and has only returned to a more serious involvement with writing in recent years. In 2016, his poem “300 Min” received an Honorable Mention from PEN America. In the past five years, he has completed over a hundred poems and five novels as well as a number of short stories. He is looking to publish more fiction and poetry and would be grateful for sample copies of literary journals and submission guidelines. For his mailing address please contact insiderprize[at]americanshortfiction.org.

  Two days ago, ATX, a five-foot-two pallid hispanic prisoner on our cell block in his mid- to late-twenties, got his throat slit with a razor from ear to ear. I was at the law library when it happened. I came back, and the officers were locking us all up in our cells while three prisoner janitors mopped blood off the floor. The bright sun and the smell of fresh air seemed miles behind me.

ATX had had a fistfight in the dayroom with Bubba, a fifty-sevenish bald-headed five-foot-seven clean shaven black man with another thirty years in prison, before I left to the law library. I caught the end of that fight when I came back to the cell block after lunch.

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Seeing Bubba exchange punches with ATX puzzled me because since I had moved in to the cell block two weeks before, Bubba had been polite, helpful, and respectable. He would life coach some of the men on the cell block. He was also an expert tailor. He had recently hemmed up my visitation pants. And I had been helping him identify some legal problems he had with his conviction. He complained about misidentification. I had written down some case citations for him so he could look into them.

ATX had only been on the cell block for about four days, but he too had been laid back and respectable. He and Bobby, who lived two cells down from ATX, had been exchanging ideas about God and the Bible.

The hispanic and black gang members in the dayroom (Tango Blast, Bloods, and Crips) were unsettled. There’s an unwritten G-Code on this building that the youngsters do not fight with older prisoners. ATX was violating that code. Bubba and ATX had had some kind of falling out in line in the chow hall. Bubba had accidentally bumped into ATX. ATX said, “You must think I’m some kinda ho!”

Bubba’s from the old school. He spent years in lockup for killing one of his cell mates. He couldn’t overlook ATX’s hostility.

ATX said, “If you fucked up about it, we can get under the TV and get that.” So they fought under the  TV, and ATX got a good hit in and busted Bubba’s lip. After the fight, ATX kept bringing the issue up to other men on the cell block out loud. In doing so, he kept the fire burning. For the next three hours, Bubba told the men he wanted to cut ATX.

Those men tried over and over to talk Bubba out of it. Bubba wouldn’t listen. His mind was set. To make matters worse, with Bubba’s old school penitentiary mentality comes the idea that once you say you’re gonna do something , it’s like making  a promise. And you gotta follow through with it. You gotta keep your word. Even if it doesn’t make any sense. Even on some shit like this. Never mind the fact that Bubba’s sister was talking to him about hiring a parole lawyer for him. That’s the old school penitentiary mentality. That’s what this system does to you.

Twenty years in prison is enough for a man to learn his lesson. Anything after that pushes you to the limit. The point of no return. If you’re not strong enough mentally, physically, and emotionally, the system turns you into a fully programmed machine. Bubba had reached that point.

These days, no one expects you to keep that kind of promise. Instead, they try to talk you out of it. The younger generation of experienced prisoners have to counsel the older, more experienced, more traumatized lifers. We have to carry the burden of trying to talk these men out of keeping those kinds of promises.

My neighbor Rudy was sitting next to ATX on the bench. Rudy told ATX, “Watch out because that old school’s gonna try to shank you.” ATX didn’t listen. He fell asleep on the bench while sitting down in front of the TV in the dayroom. Bubba snuck up behind ATX and slit his throat ear to ear.

ATX stood up and started walking around the dayroom talking shit. “I’m ready to die in here!” Blood leaked out of his neck and soaked into his white T-shirt. The gash on his Adam’s apple was wide enough and deep enough to stick the tip of your pinky into all the way past your pinky nail. “Somebody give me a blade!” No one did.

Yesterday, after Rudy and I finished working out, we got into a conversation under the stairs of the cell block about what happened. Me, Rudy, and Bobby. Rudy stands six-foot-one. He’s lanky, but physically fit. A hispanic thug out of San Antonio who recently told me that he used to inject into his veins a half an ounce of meth every day before he came to prison. He’s thirty years old. He has the San Antonio Spur emblem in the middle of his chest with Aztec Indian art all over the rest of his upper back. He will discharge a four-year sentence in eight months, and he complains that his lawyer fucked him over. His modus operandi is car theft rings.

Bobby is a five-foot-three white boy in his early forties with the body of a middleweight weight lifter. He’s got fifteen years in on a ninety-nine-year sentence for bank robbery. His brother-in-law testified against him at his trial. He’s a recent revert to Christianity and a recovering alcoholic with salt and pepper hair. His sister and two of his nieces were shot and killed in the mass church shooting at the baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017. His nephew was shot five times and lived. Another niece looked into the eyes of the killer and lived without a single gunshot wound. He told me yesterday that when his sister and the kids got shot, his sister covered his nieces with her body to protect them. He said, “She tried to cover their mouths so they wouldn’t make any noise. My sister was bigger than me. She wasn’t huge, but she was big boned.”

Me, I’m forty-one years old. Chicano brown skin. Thirteen years in on a sixty-year sentence with a murder conviction under the law of parties.

Rudy was sitting on the bottom flight of the stairs. He said he saw Bubba coming. He got up from the bench and shied away. He said, “I got up and left.” He cracked a slight smile. He had a shadow of guilt in his eyes. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

Bobby’s lips took the shape of a seagull in the distant sky back home in Corpus Christi, at the beach on North Padre Island. I saw parentheses at each end of his lips. His eyelids formed a straight line and almost halfway shut. His eyebrows curved up toward each other. He looked at Rudy with disappointment. Bobby said, ‘How would you like it if I got up and left you there to get your throat slit?”

Rudy said, “I told him to watch out. And what did he do? He went to sleep. Shit, Old School could’ve cut me! If I’d have got in, it would’ve started all kinds of shit. He shouldn’t have been fighting with that old school. And he should’ve listened to me when I warned him.”

I said, “He should’ve stayed in the cell. He was already in there. He shouldn’t have come back out.”

Bobby said, “I thought about trying to make peace between them. We all ate on the same table at chow. But Bubba was already with that mindset. He probably would have come after me. You saw the way he got after his own people for trying to get involved. I could’ve said something or tried to do something to prevent it.” He told us that Bubba had big-faced ATX in the chow hall. He concluded that he and Rudy had cowered by not intervening.

Unsure of what to say, I took a deep breath and rubbed my head. I looked down at my brown skin; at my threadbare tennis shoes; at the snake and dragon wrapped around my leg that I paid a thousand dollars for twenty years ago during the cocaine-dealing chapter of my life, at Axis Tattoo shop, in downtown Corpus Christi across from the Greyhound bus station, before U.S. District Judge Janice Graham Jack sent me to federal prison, where I lost my wife Iris to cocaine, meth, Xanax, and other men. I can still hear her in 2001, eighteen years ago, behind limo tint, singing to me in the passenger seat of the red Grand Am I bought her while I drove through palm trees past the million-dollar mansions on Ocean Drive on the way to our house with the sparkling salt water bay to our left. Serenity, our then one-year-old baby girl, our pageant prize and trophy winner, sat in the middle of the back seat in her car sucking on the nipple of an empty Enfamil bottle. I can still see Serenity’s long eyelashes curling up and her black button eyes, blinking. I can feel Iris’s smooth milky skin at my fingertips; her long reddish brown hair in between my fingers. I can still hear her sober million-dollar voice in my head. The only woman who’s ever called me handsome. “How will I live without you?” The song from Con Air. Her voice echoes in my memories. I remember thinking, My life is complete.

Bobby said, “We’re supposed to stop things like that from happening.”

Rudy said, “Fuck that!”

I said, “We gotta be prudent in what we do. It’s like being in a war. We gotta get out of here alive.”

Later on, I reflected on the conversation. I thought, It’s like a war in many respects. But not all. ATX was not a fellow soldier. We didn’t even know him. And he violated too many prison principles. But does that make him less human? Does that make him deserving of death? We gotta make sure that we get out of here alive. That’s a duty we owe our families and ourselves. If you were there, what would you have done? And don’t tell me you’d have told the officers. You don’t do that in prison. If you do, then you might be the one getting your throat slit. Besides, the officers want us to kill each other. Not all of them are like that, but it always seems like the worst ones are around at the worst times. They won’t do anything for us until the deed is done. Then they’ll throw it in our faces as if we proved them right.

Weeks later while I sat in my cell thinking about how to end this story, I thought about promises. How promises are so easily broken. I remembered being in federal prison and promising myself that I’d never come back to prison. I was released. Yet here I sit. I write. Some promises you just don’t keep.

—

Steven Reynaldo Perezwas born in Corpus Christi, Texas, on July 5, 1978. He is a member of the Pen City Writers inside team at the John B. Connally state prison in Kenedy, Texas, which was established and is led and taught by author Deb Olin Unferth of the University of Texas at Austin. Steven is a self-taught paralegal; a staunch prisoner advocate against unlawful convictions and sentences and mass incarceration; and an avid defender of prisoner rights. In 2019, he earned a creative writing fellowship from the U.T. Austin English Department. He is in his 14th year of a 60-year sentence.

  Back in the age of the dinosaurs, which most consider around 1964:

My family and I lived in a small town called China, Texas. We had a huge rice farm/ranch operation with an average cattle count of fifteen-hundred head. We also had our cow horses (around twenty) and two Shetland ponies.

I was, at the time, around eight years old. My brother was eleven months younger than myself.

In my family, there were six kids, and at this time of year, in the dog-days of summer, us kids were not in school and pretty much had to make our own adventures manifest.

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Mom had a new baby, another girl, and now there were four of them, with just the two boys, so the girls pretty much stayed in the house playing with Barbie dolls that had broken knees, for I couldn’t figure out how they worked. So, to make a long story short, my brother and I were pretty much exiled to the outside of the house to keep the peace. Besides, mom breast-fed, and we certainly didn’t want to see that; it was better this way because we got to play with our many dogs, and we killed water moccasins, which were in abundance because of the small rice field we had by the house. So my brother and I were guards of the ole homestead, terrors incarnate in the bodies of two rambunctious small boys.n other words, we were normal, mischievously under-supervised little boys doing what we considered fun.

My stepfather worked the big fields, and we had some chores that took place mainly if we were being watched closely, or if it had to do with our horses. We liked our horses.

We liked going out into the next pasture. Our house was surrounded on three sides with pastures, and rice fields.

The horses, or most of them, liked it when we went there. A couple of them always got special treatment. Blaze was my regular riding horse. A standard quarter horse mare with a white face and white socks, roan in color, a lustrous red, she knew that when she saw me, she was in for a good curry-combin’ and brushing, along with the sugar cubes that we gave those horses that would come to us.

Most were on to us. We went in the pasture with an empty bucket making them think we had sweet oats for them. When they got fooled a few times, only the sugar-addicted horses would stay for their rewards of sugar cubes, and yes, sweet oats, for my brother and I liked playing tricks on the horses. We only wanted to curry-comb the horses that liked us.

Of course, we made sure the water trough was filled. Playing with water in the hot summer days was fine with us, and when we got wet, who cared? That was our job.

Now the bigger horses were fun to mess with, but it was rare that we could saddle or ride one of the cow ponies without the help of our stepfather. Even though we rode them a lot, they weren’t kid horses, and when the saddles came out, it was work time for them, and they knew this. We did ride bareback at times, but this story isn’t about that.

We had two Shetland ponies, which this story is about, for they were the kid horses. They were for the girls, but we rode them more than anyone.

SugarBee was one of the most genial of creatures, and very tolerant of us. We liked her, she never tried to bite us. She liked sugar cubes, and to be combed as well as saddled and rode.

I don’t know where she came from, but she was such a sweetheart that even with two miscreants around her, her disposition rubbed off on us, and we always gave her special attention.

Frisky, though, was another matter. Frisky was an un-castrated cattle stud with a painted hide. He could have almost been an Indian Pony had his legs been longer. What he didn’t have in height, he had in malignity.

He would bite, he would kick, and step on feet with sharp little hooves as well as buck you off. . .if you could get on him that is. He was won by our neighbor during a raffle at a Catholic church fundraiser. When our neighbor came over to our place and just gave this critter to us to be rid of it, we knew that there had to be a good reason. I had to ear-hustle his conversation with my stepfather.

The neighbor was explaining how mean this pony was. He was also telling him that this horse didn’t like the sulky wagon, which basically is a seat with two wheels in it. You see harness racing with these wagons.

It seems Frisky waited for our neighbor to hook up this wagon, then, after he got in, the pony went into “stupid-gear” when the reins were snapped over his back. Frisky went to kicking, and bucking as well as snapping like a mad Chihuahua, then kicking the buggy until the neighbor fell off. The pony then kicked the light-weight wagon over his head, then backed out of the harness. He ran down old Highway 90, causing a cussing, winded foot race with the neighbor. Frisky now became ours, and with rascally glee I ran to tell my brother the good news.

Time would go on, and the summer dragged on. We had got Frisky in the spring, and got him used to us. I even rode him bareback, and was bit a couple of times, as well as had my toe stepped on, but he would come to us readily enough.

We kept these horses in the small field with the horse barn that had hundreds of mesquite and Chinaberry trees — which by the way, is where China, Texas gets its name.

One morning before it got too hot, my brother and I, like each day during the summer, were off and running full tilt into our shenanigans.

Being met at our front door by our mismatched pack of dogs (somewhere around fifteen  of them) we headed off to the horse field.

Dogs were running all around, chasing rabbits, and finding snakes and killing them. My brother and I were just accepted members of the pack.

We went into the horse pasture, grabbed the bucket, and were able to get SugarBee to us, then Blaze, but the others weren’t falling for these two human pups’ tricks. It made us no difference, because we were just out and about trying to stay away from the stupid girls that always wanted to dress us up in dresses. No sir, we was off and running because both my brother and I knew to get caught by that female horde might mean my other ear was getting a needle driven through it. It was safer out with the snakes, nutria rats, gators, horses, and such.

When we had finished messing with SugarBee and Blaze, we saw Frisky wandering slowly toward us. I had a couple of sugar cubes left, so when he got to us we were able to comb him, which he liked, and he smelled the sweet oak bucket, but we hadn’t gotten that far yet.

Now horses aren’t known for their proper etiquette, so while we were treating this mean little fart with kindness, he of all things decided to pee on us. He just flowed the ole whiz-wand out and peed like a racehorse on us, causing it to splash all over both my and my brother’s feet and legs.

“Oh no you didn’t!”

Yes he did, and now my brother and I backed away from the flash flood this guy caused.

Oh yeah, the horns came out on both my brother’s and my head. In fields like this what we called crawdad holes were everywhere. Small towers of hard mud-balls that crayfish have erected were everywhere, and ready ammo for two pissed off, and pissed on, boys.

We, of course, started throwing these things at the pony. I know it was wrong, but being seven and eight years old in 1964, we didn’t care, for retribution was at hand.

The pony must have held all that water through the night just for us. He continued on while we threw small clods of mud at him surely aiming for the offending member.

What we didn’t see was that menacing look and evil, what looked like a smile I later remember seeing; which, come to think of it, looked more like a snarl.

With his ears laying back now, as we got closer to throw these mud clods, that little fart’s back feet started flying up. He kicked me in the arm, throwing me to the ground.

My brother was close to a barbed wire fence, and he got kicked over and over as he went under the fence. I jumped up, and found an old rotten stick, then whacked him, breaking the stick. He then started chasing me with blood in his eyes, kicking and snapping at my butt with those sharp horse teeth while I tried to find a faster gear to get in.

My brother chased after the horse, or Shetland pony, which is what he was. He grabbed the tail, getting another kick in the leg, while the horse spun around, I yelled for my brother to climb a Chinaberry tree that was close by. I also headed for our ethereal heaven.

This heathenish fiend saw both my brother and I was out of reach now, so he started cropping grass under the tree. My brother and I could just look at each other and laugh.

Oh no, it wasn’t over though. Each time the horse edged away, we would try to sneak down the tree, and Frisky would lay his ears back, then start bucking, and running back and forth under the tree, thus keeping us stranded up that Chinaberry tree for at least two hours, until he finally wandered away. We got down and ran out of the pasture. I wanted to get even with him for doing that to us, but he had got our attention.

We never threw dirt clods at him again, and we seemed to have some deep rooted respect for each other. I would ride him, and he would bite me, or step on my foot, and I’d push him off, limp a little, then get on. I kept a small switch handy.

We would leave a year or so later because Mom was looking for another life. She took us with her, but I’ll never forget when that wild pony ruled the day.

—

Timothy Bazrowx grew up in China, Texas, and his writing about life in prison and out was published by The Marshall Project, Prisons Foundation, and Uncaptive Voices. In April 2020, he died due to complications from COVID-19.

  About the Organizers & this Year’s Judge

Emily Chammah and Maurice Chammah are assistant editors at American Short Fiction and co-direct the Insider Prize. Emily is a Fulbright Fellow, and the winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her fiction can be found in The Common. Maurice is a staff writer at The Marshall Project, where he reports on the U.S. criminal justice system. His first book, Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty will be published by Crown Books in January.

Justin Torres has published short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, The Washington Post, Glimmer Train, Flaunt, and other publications, as well as non-fiction pieces in publications like The Guardian and The Advocate. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Justin’s novel We the Animals has been translated into fifteen languages and was recently adapted into a film. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. The National Book Foundation named him one of the 2012’s 5 under 35. He was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Rolón Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at UCLA.

#American Short Fiction

[lostinthedark-rp]

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.”

Rita Skeeter

Affiliation: Neutral

Age: Twenty-Four

Availability: CLOSED

Faceclaim: Emmy Rossum

+ Astute + Imaginative + Charismatic - Conniving - Deceptive - Tactless

Rita Skeeter. Her name and her bad attitude were all that her father gave her before he went off to drown his sorrows in a bottle. She knows that he had to exists because she does but the rare times he came around she could only remember the stench of gin and nicotine. Past the age of five she can’t recall ever seeing him. Her mother, she stuck around but every moment she was there she made it clear that she didn’t want to be. She had dreams outside of being a mother , in fact the only dream she didn’t have was bring a mother. She wanted to be an actress or a singer or anything but Rita’s mum. As soon as she was capable and way before she should have had to Rita was taking care of herself, if she didn’t feed herself she didn’t eat. If she didn’t remind her mother that she needed clothes, over and over, then she didn’t get them. It was those days where she had to beg to be where she was, when she had to fight to let someone know that she existed. These were the days that made her realize that she was going to be someone. Everyone was going to know her name when she was done. Hogwarts was something that was an escape for her, the first time that she felt like she wasn’t a burden. That wasn’t holding anyone back. She didn’t just do well, she thrived in the environment. Constantly putting herself in the spotlight, Rita was intelligent but she didn’t just want to be smart she wanted to be the best. Half of the reason she studied as hard as she did was so that she could be the one with the answer, when her hand was in the air and eyes were on her because she knew the answer unlike those around her. While her high marks were unnoticed by her mother it only made her want to work harder. She could have done whatever she wanted to do but when she looked at McGongall and informed her that she wanted to be a writer she watched as the vein on her forehead popped out because it was as if she was wasting her potential and while that may have been true she was driven by one emotion in that and it was bitterness.  Graduating she went off and began applying anywhere and everywhere, her mother may not have been able to make a name for herself but Rita sure would just to show her that she had never been the problem. The Daily Prophet wanted her, the guaranteed her a safe, well paying job that would put her writing articles for them. She heavily considered it but it was the call from Witch Weekly, pitching that they wanted to start a gossip column that spiked her attention. It would be long hours, the pay wasn’t that great to start off with and if it didn’t work she would be out of a job before too long. To most it would seem like an idiot move to take the risk but Rita knew that she was worth it, that she would succeed. She was too stubborn to fail, after all. But that feeling didn’t last long, the loneliness soon over taking her. She had friends, and she had plenty of enemies but what she didn’t have was the family that so many people she knew had. As a child she had constantly heard from her mother that she had an aunt, but she wasn’t really like them, while Rita and her mother had magic her aunt didn’t and because that she was considered an outcast in the family. It wasn’t until she was eighteen years old, and out from under her mothers thumb as a successful woman that she looked out for them. She didn’t find what she expected, instead of a happy home with a woman who baked, she found a sick woman who was bedridden and a dirty thirteen year old who had taken on so much more than he should have. For someone who had been written off as cold and callous by most she quickly rearranged her life to help them. She wasn’t sure why she did it, it wasn’t as if she owed them anything but she wanted to, because there was something about this woman and her son that made her want to do it. While Peter was in school she worked at the Witch Weekly and stayed with his mother, she made sure that she was taken care of, constantly feeding and and reading to her. Telling her about her day at the office and helping her write to Peter while he was away at Hogwarts. She also did little things, things she would never admit to such as sending him a new pair of shoes, or making sure that he had fresh ink and quill, simply sending them and signing his mother’s name. She had the money to spend and it was something that she could do to help the both of them.

The gossip column took off and before she knew it everyone knew her name. Most people hated her, because the information she wrote about didn’t have to be true and that’s what made it all the fun. She could write whatever she wanted to, her mind took off and soon she had gossip coming in from everywhere, people begging her to write about them or write about someone that they hated. Or someone that they loved. Suddenly, with her name well known and her paycheck increasing her mother came knocking on the door of her flat and Rita had never had as much joy as she did the day she was able to shut the door in her face.  When Peter graduated and his mother grew sicker she helped him move her to St. Mungo’s. She did as much as she could without actually letting Peter know that she was doing it, she didn’t want the looks he would give her if he knew. The time that he has spent with his mum was some of the best, for the first time she felt as if she had someone who loved her and she suddenly had two people that she would do anything for. Most of her mornings before work are spent at St. Mungos, reading to her aunt, and overall just letting her know that she as not alone. And letting her know that she would do whatever she had to do for Peter... when the time came that it was just the two of them. The War changed everything for most around her, the dark times that fell were cold and they were sad but Rita feed off of them. She tied the event around her into her writing, often making friends and playing nice with people that she really shouldn’t have.

DOLORES UMBRIDGE: Frenemies - Rita knows that under normal circumstances that Dolores would be someone that she would avoid at all costs. She rubs Rita wrong but her high standings in the Ministry and willingness to exchange information keeps her in the loop of what’s going on.

GILDEROY LOCKHART: Dislikes - She’s aware of how much Gilderoy hates her, but she also knows that while he’s hating her and her column that she doesn’t care. She gives him a smile when she see’s him and gushes over just how well things are going at Witch Weekly for her.

PETER PETTIGREW: Cousins - For as much as she tease and tourments the boy Rita loves him. She’d never admit that to his face, giving him the satisfaction of knowing that she would do anything for him would be too much.

GWENOG JONES: Friends - Gwenog would be one of the few people that Rita considers to be a friend, she never intended for that to happen, originally she was someone who provided her information. Information about a certain kid who worked far too many hours at St. Mungo’s and then went and drowned his sorrows at the local bar in Manchester. But overtime her personality won Rita over and she enjoy’s the girls company.

#marauders rp #marauders roleplay #hp rp #hp roleplay #rita skeeter #emmy rossum #taken #takenf #neutral #ritaskeeterbio

[corinthoscoffee]

Daytime Emmy Nomination REACTIONS

Okay, finally I’m able to sit and check out the nominations. Let’s see what kind of hot mess we have this year, shall we?

Outstanding Show All 4 shows are nominated, which at this point why not cause it just seems catty when they leave one show out.

Outstanding Lead Actress Nancy Lee Grahn, Laura Wright, Gina Tognoni, Jess Walton, and Heather Tom. I mean Heather is going to win, she’s Heather Freaking Tom.

Outstanding Lead Actor Peter Bergman, Kristoff St. John, Vincent Irizarry, Billy Flynn, and Scott Clifton. Oh look Mr. Cue Cards from GH is missing 😂😂😂. I mean Scott is the favorite to win I’m sure but come on Billy Flynn put in the WORK last year. He was what to watch on Days.

Outstanding Supporting Actress Stacy Haiduk, Kelly Sullivan, Kate Mansi, Anna Maria Horsford, and Finola Hughes. I think this is between Finola and Anna, with Kate as the dark horse.

Outstanding Supporting Actor John Aniston, Steve Burton, Chad Duell, Jeffrey Vincent Parise, and James Reynolds. Hmm..I think it’s between John and Chad, but JVP could sweep in.

Outstanding Younger Actress Lexi Ainsworth, Reign Edwards, Hunter King, Chloe Lanier, and Alyvia Alyn Lind. Lexi should win, but she should’ve won in the past and didn’t...so LBR for some reason the voters love Hunter so I bet she’ll win again.

Outstanding Younger Actor 7BC, Pierson Fode, James Lastovic, Tequan Richmond, and Anthony Turpel. 😫 If I thought this award actually went to the most talented actor than I would say Pierson or Tequan, but we know this award has been a clusterfuck for years...and I fear that 7BC will win and then he’ll still think he’s hot shit and not understand that we think he’s a piece of shit we want to scrap off our shoe.

Outstanding Guest Performer Tobin Bell, Don Harvey, Monica Horan, Nichele Nichols, and Jim O’Heir. I mean I thought Tobin Bell was insanely perfectly creepy as John Blacks long lost father, and should be rewarded for that...but really who knows.

Outstanding Writing All four shows are nominated and seriously who knows, all 4 shows are hot messes but in different ways. Might as well just give it to Brad because do you really want to hear Chuck, Jelly, Dena’s names called?

Okay what do you guys all think about the nominees, who are you rooting for?

#General Hospital #The Young and the Restless #The Bold and the Beautiful #Days of our Lives #Daytime Emmys

[quinnmorgendorffer]

I hate Darren criss

Oh my. People. Why must you wake the beast?

Let’s see. He can’t sing to save his life and probably has nodes from his poor technique he pushed into trying -- keyword trying, the better word, though, would be failing -- to sing Hedwig for months. While he does know how to write for himself, he’s awful at singing Broadway music and the Little Mermaid concert he did? He was even worse than Rebel, which is saying something.

Let’s talk about how his acting on G/lee was a one-man lesson in how to overact and overuse one’s already ridiculous eyebrows. He admitted that he just went with what they gave him and didn’t even try to do back up, whereas Chris and Dianna are just two of the people who talked about creating backstories for their characters and the like (and then, of course, being upset when the writers fucked with their characters). 

He’s conceited as fuck and promoted his guest spot on AHS which was, what, all of three minutes long? Most of which was him being stabbed by a much better actress he didn’t deserve to share screen time with? I can’t even begin with his showboating in the BTS for “Old Dog, New Tricks”, the BTS that should’ve focused on Chris but instead focused on how apparently he thought he deserved a Golden Globe/Best Seller -- remember when the producers didn’t even submit him for an Emmy for G/lee and he had to do it himself? Lmao, I do, and I drink those delicious tears of his fans daily.

Then there’s his transphobic ass who called Hedwig “it” repeatedly and didn’t stop until he got hate for it, and even then didn’t sound sorry as fuck. The fact that he’s said he’s had to “come out as straight”, like haha how ~quirky~ he’s had to admit he’s like most of society, not like the millions of people who have to come out and fear losing their homes and jobs and lives for it!!!!! The fact he’s gotten people riding his dick as a “queer straight boy” because THAT’S a thing and not at all offensive. And the fact that, yes, it’s out of his control, but the fact that people will praise him on end for playing a gay man whereas Chris won an actual big fucking award for playing a gay man and yet people say he wasn’t acting because he’s gay like...okay.

That’s not even touching on how he goads his fans into shipping himself with Chris despite having a long time girlfriend and Chris having a boyfriend that d/arren obviously knows. He’s just said “never say never” and goaded on every single shipper even though they harassed his girlfriend, who you’d think he cares at least a little about?, and also Chris and Chris’ boyfriend.

That’s not even touching on how he’s repeatedly dissed his castmate’s work (remember when he said his album couldn’t be produced as fast as L/ea’s because his required more work basically? I don’t even like her and that pisses me off).

That’s not even touching on how he makes gay sex/gay rape jokes.

That’s not even touching on how he made the Trevor Project all about himself.

That’s not even touching on how he made Chris’ movie premiere and the HP Deathly Hallows pt 2 premiere all about himself instead of what it was about.

That’s not even talking about how when the fucking NYPD told him NOT to go to the stage door one night during H2$, he went anyways and caused a fucking scene and FUCKING DISOBEYED DIRECT POLICE ORDERS.

And then on top of all of that, I thought I was finally done seeing him and I spent over a month seeing his fucking face on posters for the Hedwig tour because he opened it in SF.

There’s so, so, so much more I could say about that dead-eyed untalented hack, but I’ll leave it at that. I hate him. I always will. 

Feel free to use this as your own masterpost of why you dislike him lmao.

SEND ME YOUR MOST HATED CHARACTERS/CELEBRITIES AND I’LL TELL YOU IF I HATE THEM TOO OR NOT

#lol darren criss #anti darren criss #fight-me-boi

[zodgory]

Bryan Cogman should've gotten another episode. Instead, I'm suddenly remembering that D&D wrote the last four episodes

I'm still waiting for them to top "You want a good girl, but you NEED the bad pussy."

That episode won an Emmy for writing

#Galaxy brain is GRRM writing the series finale #stupid blather